If These 9 Scenarios Sound Familiar, You're Together For The Wrong Reasons
Is it time to take your life in a different direction?
Phoenixns / Shutterstock You would be amazed at all of the different reasons people stay with partners they're not sure are right for them. I wish that I could tell you that the reason I hear is because they love them madly — but, alas, I am afraid that just isn’t true.
In my experience, people want to stay in a relationship, not knowing if their person is the right person for them, for every reason other than that they love them. And it’s very hard for them to see that.
How do you know if you are with the right person? Let me help.
Here are nine uncomfortable scenarios that prove you're together for the wrong reasons
1. You hate to be alone
I can’t tell you how many of my clients stay in relationships because they don’t want to be alone.
That the idea of being alone is worse than being with someone who is making them unhappy.
A client of mine was in a relationship for 20 years. She had been miserable for 15 of them but she was worried that, if she moved on, she would be alone forever.
So, she stayed — and stayed miserable.
And the irony was that she was lonelier in her unhappy relationship than she might have been out of it.
She stayed because she wanted someone to spend time with, who would be her partner, but then he didn’t want to spend time with her or respect her wishes or any of the other things that she wanted from the relationship.
As a result, she felt truly alone, even though she did have a boyfriend.
So, be honest with yourself. Are you afraid of being alone? Do you look at your person and feel unhappy but know that you can’t break up with them not because you still love them but because you just don’t want to be alone?
If the answer is yes, you’re with your person for the wrong reasons.
2. You are jealous that your ex has a new partner
When I got divorced and my ex-husband got married three years later, while I was still single, I remember my daughter telling me that my ex had ‘won the breakup.’ That he had found happiness before I did and that I was the loser, left alone, pretty miserable.
And I hated that I didn’t want to be the loser who was alone while my ex-husband (who had left me, BTW) found happiness.
So, what did I do? I got right out there and dated like a fiend. The number of dates that I went on in the first few months was, in retrospect, staggering, but I was determined to find a man.
I jumped into a relationship with the first semi-decent guy who came alone. He was fun enough but I was pretty sure early on that he wasn’t the guy for me.
But I stayed. Why? Because I didn’t want to be the loser without a boyfriend when my ex was living the life.
Not surprisingly, that first relationship didn’t work out. I was only with him because I didn’t want the world to think that I was a loser.
As time went on, dating became less about finding someone to prove to my ex that I didn’t need them and more about looking for someone who I could spend my life with.
And I found him.
I wouldn’t have if I had stayed with the first guy who came along, because I was jealous of my ex. He was totally the wrong person for me and I knew it all along.
3. You only stay when they cry
I have a client who has wanted to break up with his girlfriend for years. I mean, years. Almost since the moment they got together.
He has even gone so far as to get an apartment so that, when he tells her he wants to break up, he has a place to go right away.
But, he has never once actually moved into one of those apartments (losing a ton of money on security deposits along the way).
Why? Because, when he tries to break up with his girlfriend, she cries. And those tears terrify him so he relents, lets go of his new apartment and stays.
Over and over and over and over. He knows he needs to leave but those tears make him stay.
When a man makes a woman cry, the man will often instantly do whatever they need to do to make their woman stop doing so.
Similarly, women are such caretakers that, when they see their partner expressing emotions about losing them, they overcorrect and take their partner back.
Think about it. Do you stay because your person cries when you want to leave? If you do, you are definitely with your person for the wrong reasons.
4. You keep going back, but mostly for sex
Do you keep going back to someone, thinking that you love them truly but then realize that the best part of the reunion is the sex?
This happens all the time. People break up and then they get lonely and horny and, instead of looking for someone new, they go back to an ex because it's just easier.
And most people truly want to believe that they are going back for the right reasons, because they truly love their person, so they don’t recognize that the reason they are going back is that they are lonely and looking for sex.
So, they return, making promises, hoping for things to turn out differently this time but then, after some sex and some togetherness, they realize that all of the reasons they left are still present and they are forced to walk away again.
So, why do you keep going back? Or why does your person keep coming back, only to leave again after sex?
It’s because they are the wrong person for you.
5. They go home to their spouse
This one, I hope, is very obvious.
If your person goes home to their spouse at the end of the day, they are not the right person for you.
Relationships are all about connection, about working together to build a life and a future. To share in life’s ups and down, to face the world together, to love each other and only each other, until death do you part.
If your partner already has a spouse or a significant other, then they can’t do all of the things that couples are meant to do. They might promise you that they want to or that ‘someday’ you will be able to but, for now, they are taken.
And anyone who is taken is not the right person for you.
6. You need to be with them to feel happy
Be honest with yourself. Do you believe that if you lose your person, you will never be happy again?
Do you feel like you need them in your life so that you can function? Do you feel like they are a part of you that you can’t live without? Do you believe that, if they weren’t there, you wouldn’t be able to be successful in life? Do you feel like losing them would mean losing yourself completely?
Someone who relies on another to complete them is someone who is in a co-dependent relationship. And being co-dependent is unhealthy for so many reasons, most notably the effect that it can have on the mental and physical health of someone who is so.
The reason that we want to be in a relationship is so that we feel happy, healthy, in a partnership that helps us grow. We aren’t in a relationship to give up all of ourselves for another, losing ourselves in the process.
So, are you co-dependent in your relationship? If yes, you are with your person for the wrong reasons.
7. You don’t want to break up the family
This was me for years. I was desperately unhappy in my marriage but whenever I looked at us all sitting around the dinner table, I knew that I could never break up my family.
I was the product of a broken home and I know how horrible it was for me, both as a child and as an adult trying to navigate the world of relationships. I didn’t want that for my kids and I was determined to not give it to them.
So, I stayed but I stayed for the wrong reasons. I fought for it not because I was madly in love with my children but because I didn’t want my kids to have to spend Christmas in two places.
Many, many people stay in a relationship to keep the family unit intact. And, while they think this is the best thing to do, studies show that staying in a marriage for the kids isn’t healthy for anyone.
So, are you staying in your marriage because of your kids? If yes, are you staying in the marriage for the wrong reason?
8. You are worried about your softball team
This is a big one that I hear about from my clients questioning their relationships.
Again, when they come to me looking for help with their relationships, when I ask them what is keeping them from moving on, one of the top 5 answers (usually above love) is that they are worried about their social group.
They are worried about what will happen if they break up with their partner. Who will continue to play on their softball team and who will have to find another? Even worse, what will they do if they are both forced to play on the same team? What if their ex finds someone else and they have to deal with looking at that whenever there is a practice of a game?
Whether it’s softball or something else that you might be a part of socially, is the fear that that social situation will fall apart one of the things that is keeping you in the relationship?
If the answer is yes, consider whether or not you are with your person for the right reasons.
9. You don’t want to start all over
This is the No. 1 reason that my clients don’t want to break up with someone — because they don’t want to have to start all over.
Dating sucks. Well, not always, but a lot of the time. The endless swiping, having initial weird conversations, wondering whether or not to take the conversation offline. Where and when to meet and what to wear? How to get out of the date gracefully when they show up looking nothing like their picture.
All of those things are daunting. So why would we want to knowingly jump back into the dating scene again when we have a perfectly nice person who fulfills some of our needs? I mean, don’t most people have to compromise in any relationship?
Yes, compromise is a part of any healthy relationship but if the compromise is that you are staying so that you don’t have to date again, then that is not a sign of a healthy relationship.
We all want to be in a relationship and, as a result, we sometimes tend to try to fit a square peg into a round hole. We try as hard as we can to make something work, even when we know it can’t.
The reality is that, if you are with the wrong person, the best thing in the world that you can do, for both of you, is to end it. As long as you stay in a bad relationship, the more time that you will waste looking for the person who is right for you.
Mitzi Bockmann is an NYC-based Certified Life Coach and mental health advocate who works exclusively with women to help them be all they want to be in this crazy world in which we live.